Wednesday, January 12, 2011

More Problems for Divna

I feel SO BAD for my poor horse! She has been through so much.....she has had 2 foals, had moon blindness for years, lost her eye to glaucoma (which required three surgeries and days and days in the hospital), has colicked twice (once just recently), got caught up in a wire fence (also recently) and now she has an injury!


She is such a sweet horse.....so easy to ride, so precious to be around. It just breaks my heart that things seem to keep happening to her. She is 14 years old, so I guess in reality she has been really healthy and has had relatively few problems -- I am aware that it could be MUCH worse. Some horses live with chronic conditions and illnesses (like that poor horse we tried to help Christmas weekend). But she is my horse, and I love her. Anything she goes through that hurts her, hurts me as well.


Just after New Year's Day, I noticed Divna had a cut on her right leg, up high near where the leg meets the body, on the backside of the leg. It did not seem to be bothering her -- she walked normally, and did not mind or even seem to notice that I handled the area. Divna is usually really jumpy and difficult to work with when something is bothering her and/or scaring her. She did not react at all to this, so I put some Furmacin salve on the wound.


After a couple of days, I noticed it was beginning to drain quite a bit....I attempted to bandage it. I tried bandaging every way I could think of, even looking in books for bandaging methods. The bandages just would not stay. My horse reference book said that a cut in that area is one of the most difficult to bandaage, and it is true.


Then, a day or two later the drainage got worse. I could then see more of the cut, and it did not look good -- it looked worse than what I originally realized. I started her on antibiotics and called the vet.


As it turns out, it was worse. It was actually a gash. I have guilt that I did not call the vet immediately. Considering what happened over Christmas weekend with the poor horse we tried to save.....well, I feel horrible. Like the worst horse owner on Earth.


So the vet comes out and assesses the situation. It is a very strange gash with a sort of "pocket" area above the cut (??). He had to suture it and put in a drain tube. He gave her an antibiotic injection, and gave us some more antibiotic pills. He will be back to check her in a week, then hopefully suture removal in another week.


We have had a LOT of snow here, and John said today Divna and Zora were running and jumping and playing in the snow.That coupled with the fact that she has yet to show any sign of favoring that leg, or limping or anything, assuages my guilt somewhat. I check her sutures every morning and evening when I give her the antibiotic, and so far everything looks good in spite of her running and jumping.


The strange thing is, we have absolutely no idea how this happened to her. At first I thought it was the fence incident, but that would have been almost a month ago and the injury doesn't appear that old. The vet said it looks more like she impaled herself on something. All of our fence posts are upright and secure....there is nothing else in the pasture that we can find....so I have no explanation. The vet assistant said it seems that sometimes horses can just "....cut themselves on air....." She also said with the long winter hair it is sometimes difficult to see injuries....


Here is a photo of the injury. Don't look if you are squeemish.






























6 comments:

Jeni said...

Ouch!! I hope she heals up quickly.

I'm so glad my post made you smile =)

Paint Girl said...

Poor thing! I hope it heals quickly!
Horses do get themselves in predicaments don't they?

Desert Rose said...

You know...the Bossman's stallion is in a paddock way in the back of our stables with no horse next to him. the joke is every time his fly mask has come off...the Bossman blames the horse nest to the stallion...except that there is no horse next to him!!!
This is the deal...all of our horses end up with an injury that we never can figure out what happened!!! PLZ do NOT feel bad that do did not do more, there were no signs she was in pain and you know in your heart you would do anything your horse needed. In this case, you just did not know she needed more than you gave.

John and Regina Zdravich said...

Bless you, Desert Rose...I feel MUCH better after reading your comments....
you are the best!!

Carol said...

I'm glad she seems to be fine. My horse Rogo has had mystery wounds a couple of times that the vet couldn't figure out and neither could my husband and I. Both were in the same place, but on opposite front legs (inside, about half way up). Both had 'pockets' that the vet could stick his finger completely in, even though the wound initially looked small. Very strange and never solved. The last one was over a year ago, so I'm hoping for no repeats.
Anyway, I'm new to your blog but wanted to say don't beat yourself up - winter coats hide lots and puncture wounds are hard to see.
Great blog!

webquilts said...

Oh my..you are the greatest horse mother. Pleae... please go easy on yourself!